SECRET ARTIST MAN 2.0

By the next morning, I was all fired up and ready to start.

First, I asked Grandma if I could borrow her phone for the day. Mom always needs hers, but Grandma’s mostly just sits on her dresser. When she asked me what it was for, I told her it was an art project, which was 100 percent true. And that was good enough for Dotty.

Before I left for school, I went into my room and practiced my moves a little bit. I put Junior on the bed and took some pictures of him with Grandma’s phone. But I held the phone down by my side so it didn’t look like I was taking pictures. At least half of them came out off-center, or blurry, or both. But that was actually okay with me. I even kind of liked them better that way, so you weren’t totally sure what you were looking at. It felt more like art.

Then I tucked Grandma’s phone in my backpack, kissed Mom good-bye, and headed out for my big day.

It turned out it wasn’t so hard to get pictures of the stuff I wanted. All I had to do was keep my eyes open, especially when there weren’t any teachers around. Like in the hall, in the bathroom, in the locker room, on the bus, outside the school, and on the stairs.

I got my first few shots on the bus, when Jeremy Savin was neck-clamping a kid and pushing him out of the backseat.

Then just before first period, I saw some guys trying to shove Alvin Wu into his locker. Caught that too!

In third period, when we were supposed to be reading silently, Felicia Tollery and Ava Barlett were making fun of Dee-Dee’s iPad and pointing at her behind her back.

And the whole time, SAM was right there to catch all of it.

Then at lunch, I was about to snap a picture of some sixth graders getting kicked off their table by some eighth graders, when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Mr. Khatchadorian?”

“I, um… just wanted to make a call,” I said, holding up Grandma’s phone.

“Cell phone use is not allowed during the school day without permission,” she said.

“I know. But it was kind of an emergency.”

“Excuse me, but there is no such thing as ‘kind of an emergency,’” she said—just before Flip fell down and started howling right there on the cafeteria floor.

“OWWWWW! I think I broke my ankle!” he said. “Ow-ow-OWWWWW!”

Flip didn’t even know what I was doing. He just saw me getting in hot water and jumped to it. I don’t think he even realized he was clutching his belly right after he’d started yelling about his ankle, but it got Mrs. Stricker’s attention, anyway. Just long enough for me to disappear. (Thanks, Flip!)

Now all I had to do was stay off Mrs. Stricker’s radar until the end of the day, and then I’d be all set.

With Phase One, anyway.